Finansiel Stabilitet is an independent public company owned by the Danish State through the Danish Ministry of Industry, Business and Financial Affairs.

Finansiel Stabilitet is an institution that is critical to society in that it, together with the sector, the Danish FSA and Danmark’s Nationalbank, contributes to ensuring financial stability in Denmark. If a financial enterprise becomes distressed, Finansiel Stabilitet is ready to take it over and ensure that businesses and individuals remain able to access accounts and payment infrastructure.

Finansiel Stabilitet was established in 2008 as part of the so-called Bank Package I to address the consequences of the international financial crisis and its effects on the financial sector. Although the financial situation in Denmark is very different today, the objective of Finansiel Stabilitet remains to contribute to ensuring financial stability in Denmark by restructuring and resolving failing financial enterprises if they are unable to continue operations on their own. In carrying out this task, Finansiel Stabilitet must ensure that customers have continued access to critical financial infrastructure. This entails that the customers must be able to make payments and have access to a significant part of their liquid assets. In this connection, Finansiel Stabilitet also handles the task under the deposit guarantee scheme of ensuring access to deposits, which are covered up to approximately DKK 745,000.

As opposed to other EU countries, where small banks that are failing often enter into bankruptcy proceedings, the approach taken in Denmark is that banks are being resolved by Finansiel Stabilitet rather than going into bankruptcy proceedings.

The financial sector has saved up contingency funds through the Deposit Guarantee Fund and the Resolution Fund, and the focus is on avoiding the use of government funds in a resolution. This contributes to strengthening confidence in the financial system. Finansiel Stabilitet manages the Deposit Guarantee Fund and the Resolution Fund by investing in low-risk securities and holding cash deposits with Danmarks Nationalbank.

Finansiel Stabilitet also has as its objective to initiate resolution of the remaining activities taken over from previously failing institutions. A substantial part of these has been divested, and two companies founded for the resolution of banks taken over were solvently liquidated in 2023. A small portfolio of exposures remains in the form of claims from estates in bankruptcy, small loans and guarantees and unsold plots of land and securities. The results of the resolution activities are included in the funds under Activities handled on behalf of the government under Bank Package activities.

In recent years, Finansiel Stabilitet has taken on a number of new tasks on behalf of the government. They include the issue of guarantees for loans to install heat pumps and to buy property in rural districts and the maintenance of a debt counselling scheme for former mink farmers who remain insolvent after having received compensation from the government. Most recently, Finansiel Stabilitet has been assigned the task of managing the sale and otherwise managing assets that the government takes over from mink-related businesses in continuation of the payment of compen­sation. The scheme is expected to be applied in 2024.

Finansiel Stabilitet's tasks may be summarised as follows: